Neverwinter Nights Forum Update

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(Originally posted by Steelgem)

There are a few good postings from Trent Oster in this update, and one from Don Moar that I missed the other day regarding NWScript. All of this content was found in the Black Isle Message Boards.

Trent Oster, Producer:

Flametongue's in NWN?: Flaming visual effects on weapons are going in. I did a quick version for the Greatswords and as soon as Alex (NWN SFX artist) has time he can go through and make it look significantly less like ass.

Fan's request for non-fuzzy video of GenCon NWN demo: We are working on getting some form of higher quality video out there. As soon as we get something together I'll be sure to tell everyone when and where.

One character for single and multiplayer: One of my major points with NWN has been single player and multiplayer are the same. Each character has stats, equipment, skills and feats, etc.. So why not have one character who can play both. Picture this: You start your single player game and after a few successful quests a friend e-mails you and asks you to join in a game. All you do is pick your character and locate the game and whammo, you are playing multiplayer. After the session you can take that character and resume your single player game or you could load the older version of the character who was save with your single player game. In short, you can play NWN like BG, with characters locked to save games, or you can play like Diablo, with characters who are always progressing.

Thrown weapons & Ammo:

Summary of Suggestions:
Arrows would be wasted after use. Throwing weapons such as axes would be recoverable. Opposition to unlimited ammo of any type. Managing resources is an important part of adventuring.

Response:
I agree this would be a preferable way of dealing with throwing weapons. But there are a few issues with this system. The pile of throwing axes on the ground would quickly start eating up the graphics card's fill rate, slowing the entire game. Additionally the amount of items laying on the ground would be increased, adding to the scene overhead. Throwing weapons are in, but the mechanics for dealing with them are still under design.

Don Moar, Lead Programmer, Tools:

NWScript Debugging Capabilities: Hi,

I believe that VB6 is compiling on the fly, we won't be doing that. Also, it will not be possible to run the scripts in 'debug' mode from within the NWToolset. The only way to test a script is to play a module that runs the script using the game.

The NWToolset's script editor will include syntax highlighting, function completion and provide function argument lists. As programmers, we cannot provide a script editor that we wouldn't want to use. ;^)

The compiler will stop on the first error it encounters, so you won't see reports with long lists of bugs (there may be lots of errors, but you'll only see one per compile attempt).

We're also doing our best to ensure that an errant script cannot crash the game engine. I'll let Mark Brockington's comments in other threads describe how this is being done.

Aidan Scanlan, Writing and Design:

Today's Project: I'm using NWScript to design an encounter of a displaced family of Halflings who are trying save their remaining possessions from an encroaching enemy. More I can not say. I'm listening to Dire Straits.

J.E. Sawyer, Black Isle Moderator:

J.E. Sawyer speaks about his position on the NWN project: Are you looking at my Black Isle tag thinking, "Hey, is what he's saying the word of God almighty, or is he just expressing his opinion?" If you thought the former, you'd be wrong. Dead wrong. You'd be so wrong that even if you thought you were wrong a second after thinking the former, your rightness still would not make up for your prior wrong. I work for Black Isle Studios, not BioWare. I am not involved in the development of Neverwinter Nights, and am simply expressing my opinion as a gamer.